


The Long Walk

by inkandpaperhowl



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Wardenquisitor AU, eventually there will be comfort, hurt/hurt/hurt/COMFORT!, it's less hurt/comfort and more.., seriously sometimes I feel bad for all I've put Ro through, the saddest of the sads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandpaperhowl/pseuds/inkandpaperhowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warden-Commander Liarora Cousland thought she was done saving the world after she ended the Fifth Blight. But a letter from an old friend puts her in the wrong place and the wrong time, and she realizes that once you start being a hero, the world will find ways to make sure you never stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Prisoner

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely @kogiopsis's fault; she's the one who first suggested the Tragedy of the Wardenquisitor to me, and I have not rested since. So, thanks, love. This one's for you.

  **The Long Walk  
**

_Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow._  
_In their blood the Maker’s will is written._  
_-Benedictions 4:11-12_

_._

**1\. The Prisoner  
**

Liarora Cousland woke up to the sound of heated voices rising on the other side of a heavy-looking door that may or may not have been barred. She blinked, staring at it for a moment, before coming to the conclusion that it was probably locked.

This wasn’t the first time she had been in a prison, but she had rather thought they were past all that, especially considering Leliana was the one who had asked her to come.

She bit her lip to stifle a cry of pain as the light piercing her left hand flared again. She could feel the magic of it pulsing under her skin like a second heartbeat. It had been...an explosion? The door flew open before she could give it further thought, and Leliana entered behind a terrifyingly angry woman in Seeker armor, who Liarora decided to keep an eye on as she addressed her old friend.

“Leli,” she said, warily, “Everything all right?”

“Ro,” Leliana said, and a slip of a smile turned up the corner of her mouth for just a moment. “It’s good to see you.”

“Mm. Of course, it would be better not in handcuffs?” Ro said, raising her bound hands before her. Leliana huffed.

“Yes,” she said. “I did tell them not to do that.”

“We have no idea what she is capable of,” the Seeker cut in, voice tight. “For all we know, she’s the one who killed the Divine.”

“I think you are perfectly aware of what I’m capable of,” Ro said coolly. “And that I did not kill the Divine. I didn’t even know she was dead.” She looked past the Seeker again, catching Leliana’s eye. “I am sorry,” she said quietly. Leliana just nodded. There wasn’t more to say--not right now, anyway.

“If you didn’t kill her, who did?” the Seeker accused, stalking forward. “Everyone at the Conclave is dead--except for you.”

“Everyone?” Ro blinked, shocked. “No, that’s...” She glanced at Leliana for confirmation, but the grim set of her friend’s mouth, her arms crossed over her chest, spelled the truth more clearly than any words. “Everyone?” she repeated.

“Explain _this_.” The Seeker lifted Ro’s left hand, dragging the right one with it, before dropping them. Ro sighed.

“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t remember. There was....something exploded? I think? I was in the Fade, then...” She paused, waiting to see their looks of disbelief, but none came, so she continued. “I was running, and there was a woman, and she pulled me out. Then I woke up here, and you were arguing. And now you’re yelling at me, and I’d appreciate you stopping. Also, the handcuffs?” She held her hands up before her again, waiting expectantly for them to be unbound.

The Seeker sighed, and pulled a key from her belt.

“Fine,” she said. “If Leliana hadn’t vouched for you, there would be far worse things than handcuffs happening right now.”

“Really?” Ro said dryly. “You do know who I am, don’t you?”

The Seeker’s frown deepened, and there was something that might have been a stifled laugh from Leliana. “I...do,” the Seeker said through gritted teeth, belatedly adding with the most grudging nod to respect, “my lady.”

“If you’re going to use a title, please, stick to ‘Warden-Commander’,” Ro said. 

She stood up then, ignoring the fact that the Seeker’s hand dropped to the hilt of her sword as she did, and went to Leliana, enfolding her in a hug. The bard did not hesitate to hug her back, pressing her forehead into the crook of Ro’s neck briefly before stepping back, her hands on the Warden’s shoulders.

“You look well,” Ro said quietly. “I _am_ glad that you are safe.”

“I’m so sorry that you are not,” Leliana replied, eyes searching her old friend’s face. Ro wondered what she was looking for. “I’m sorry I called you back for this.”

“Don’t be,” the Warden said. “It was a good cause. Getting the mages and the templars to talk to one another... Wynne would have been a better voice of reason than I, but I’m glad you asked.”

“You have influence with both parties,” Leliana said, shrugging. “You would have been a voice people listened to. They did in the old days, after all.”

Ro snorted. “You mean back when I was impossibly nice to them and they couldn’t say no for fear of hurting my delicate feelings?”

“You were terribly kind,” Leliana said, smiling again. “But it stopped the Blight, no? I thought that perhaps you could have the same effect on this war. Now, however...”

“We seem to have bigger problems than the mages’ war with the templars,” the Seeker cut in. “Leliana, go to the forward camp. I will take...the Warden-Commander to the rift.”

“The rift?” Ro asked, brow furrowing.

“It...will be easier to show you.”

“Fine. But Leli--” she hesitated. “Be careful.”

“Of course,” the bard said, a flash of a wicked smile appearing under her hood. “I always am.” She disappeared up the stairs behind the door without another word, and the Seeker gently took Ro’s elbow to guide her up as well.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere. I think you’d stab me if I tried.”

“I--”

“It’s okay,” Ro said, sighing. “I don’t suppose I’d trust me either, if the Conclave really did explode. But I promise, I’m on your side, whatever side that is. Call me Ro, please.” She put her hand out awkwardly to the side.

The Seeker hesitated before taking it, shaking it briefly before returning her hand the the hilt of her sword. “Cassandra Pentaghast,” she said, finally introducing herself. “And for what it’s worth, Leliana was very convincing when arguing your innocence.”

“We’re very old friends,” Ro said fondly. “I’m glad that even part of you believes her.” She hesitated. “How did you--you and Leliana--how did you survive the explosion?”

“We weren’t here,” Cassandra said quietly, regret thick in her voice. “I was--well, I was traveling back from Kirkwall, and Leliana was away on a mission for the Divine. She arrived today, two days after I did.”

"Two _days_?” Ro repeated. “How long was I out?”

“Four,” Cassandra said. “It has been four days since the explosion.”

“And you decided that it was necessary to throw me in prison while I finished dying from whatever magic this is in my hand?”

Cassandra’s face hardened again. “We knew who you were, if that is what you are implying. Your status as the Hero of Ferelden does not absolve you of suspicion by virtue alone. The fact remains that no one but you walked out of the Conclave alive. Even if you did not kill the Divine, you are, perhaps, not entirely guiltless.”

Ro paused at the doorway, turning to Cassandra in sudden understanding. “I don’t remember what happened, but I can assure you, if I could have saved her, I would have.”

Cassandra glared at her. “Leliana said the same thing.”

“You don’t believe us?”

“I do not know what I believe. But it matters little. Come. We have work to do.”

She opened the door, and weak, winter sunlight spilled across the threshold, half-blinding Ro, who had been underground and asleep for four days. She blinked tears from her eyes as her vision adjusted and she looked up to see...

“We call it the Breach,” Cassandra explained, watching the Warden’s face with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, Maker,” Ro breathed. It had been a long time since she’d prayed, a long time since the naive girl she used to be stood at the Urn of Andraste’s Ashes in awe and _believed_. But the hole in the sky was staggering in the same way--that all-encompassing terror combined with something like wonder. She watched as green bursts of light streaked down out of the sky, impacting closer than she’d like them to. It looked like the sky was bleeding magic.

She wasn’t supposed to find it beautiful.

As she listened to Cassandra explain, her eyes locked on the swirling wound in the world, it grew, pulsing with sickly green energy. Ro cried out as her left hand throbbed in time with it, that same stinging pain that lanced up her arm from her palm like some sick spark of lightning had gotten caught under her skin. She hissed in pain, sucking a breath in through her teeth, and landed heavily on one knee. Cassandra knelt beside her, and for a second there was worry there, underneath the anger.

“It is killing you,” she said quietly.

Ro blinked. She stared down at her hand, flexing her fingers around the mark. “Of course it is,” she muttered. “What else is new?” Two foreign magics flowing through her blood now. Both trying to eat her up from the inside out. She wondered briefly which was going to kill her first.

Cassandra dragged her back to her feet, led her through the camp of angry eyes, accusing stares that professed quite clearly that even though she was the Hero of Ferelden, the one who had stopped the Blight, this explosion negated every accomplishment she’d previously been proud of. The destruction of the Conclave that the Chantry blamed her for was enough for the people of Haven to hate her, despite all she’d done for them in the past.

Then again, she thought wryly, she had come to their village, killed their priest, basically destroyed the higher rank of their cult, and also killed the dragon they had taken to revering as some sort of twisted Andraste reborn. Perhaps the town had more cause to hate her than just this new misappropriated guilt.

It took them twenty minutes to reach the first of what Cassandra called rifts. They fought several demons on the way, and Ro began to worry that these demons had made it so far from the rifts they obviously spawned from. But she didn’t have time to dwell on it as they arrived at the smaller, bright green hole in the air, clearing out the last wave of demons as they approached it.

“Here--” an elf, tall and bald and certainly not dressed for the weather, grabbed her hand, thrusting it up toward the rift. Ro felt a sickening surge of something from her gut, or maybe her chest, or possibly her arm, and the mark on her hand flared bright--almost as bright as the rift--and a stream of green light was pulled from her palm, streaking toward the hole in the world until it had drained however much it needed to close.

Ro yanked herself away from the elf with a frown, rubbing her right thumb into her left palm as the magic subsided, leaving her with the same dull ache she’d had since she woke up.

“What did you do?” she asked, probably more harshly than she meant to. He merely raised his eyebrow, seemingly unperturbed by her tone.

“ _I_ did nothing. You closed the rift. It seems I was correct when I hypothesized that your mark was capable of such a thing.”

“Right,” Ro said, her frown deepening. “Simple as that.”

“And a good thing, too,” a voice said from behind her. “I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.” She turned to find a dwarf slinging a massive crossbow across his back, a wry smile on his face, which was dominated by a nose that had been broken at some point in his life. She couldn’t help smiling at his comment--she had rather agreed.

“Varric Tethras,” he introduced himself with half a bow in her direction. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

Ro laughed. “Well, if you tell me anything about the next installment of _Hard in Hightown_ , you’ll hardly be unwelcome.”

“Oh, you’ve read something of mine? Good to hear. What’s your favorite part? I love hearing other people talk about my writing. Particularly how much they like it.”

“Perhaps some other time,” Cassandra said pointedly, and Ro shrugged in agreement, which earned her a glare from the Seeker. “Don’t encourage him, my lady.”

“I did ask you not to call me that,” Ro sighed quietly.

“What would you rather we call you?” Varric asked brightly, ignoring Cassandra’s glare turning to him.

“Ro, if you like,” she said. “If you’re going to insist on titles, Warden-Commander. It’s the only one that holds any meaning anymore.”

“You really are the Hero of Ferelden, aren’t you?” Varric asked, eyes glimmering with eagerness. “I’m going to have to pick your brain at some point--I’ve been dying for that whole story for a decade now.”

“Yes, well, if we live through the valley, I’ll make sure you are the first person she talks to,” Cassandra said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, I’m coming with you, Seeker,” Varric said. “You’re going to need me.”

“You’ve been very helpful, Varric, but I don’t think--”

“Have you been down there lately, Seeker?” he asked bluntly. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

Cassandra turned away from him with a grunt of frustration. Or possibly defeat.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions,” the elf interrupted. “I’m glad that you are up and awake.”

“He means, _I kept that mark from killing you while you slept_ ,” Varric interjected. Ro raised an eyebrow.

“Are you a healer then?” she asked. Solas tilted his head to one side, as if beginning to weigh her question before realizing it wasn’t that difficult to answer.

“Not as such,” he said. “Perhaps I am a little bit of everything.”

“Ah,” she said, sighing. “That’s too bad. It helps, having a good spirit healer around.”

“Well, I hope I prove useful in other ways, then,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Cassandra, you should know that the Breach is unlike any magic I have ever seen. Your prisoner is no mage, though I find it hard to believe any mage would have such power.”

“I might surprise you,” Ro said dryly, trying to ignore the “prisoner” part of the sentence. Varric snorted. Cassandra just nodded assent.

“We should get moving then,” she said.

And so they did. Another twenty minutes of walking--and several more demons killed on the way--brought them to a well-fortified, if hasty, camp set up overlooking the remains of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Ro blinked, looking out over the destruction.

 _What sort of magic caused this?_ she thought, absently rubbing her hand on her thigh, as if she could rub the magic out of her system. She didn’t want to acknowledge that she could understand why Cassandra thought she--Ro--had caused the explosion. She was the one with the mark that could close rifts. It followed that it could be used to open them too.

She caught Leliana’s eye as Chancellor Rocerick introduced himself by yelling for her arrest, and had to stifle a laugh at the look on her old friend’s face before turning to the irate clergyman.

“If you know who I am, then you know that I can do much more for you here than if you arrested me and sent me to Val Royeaux. Not that I’d mind a vacation, but I think there are more important things going on here.”

“Divine Justinia is dead!” the chancellor protested, eyes popping, outraged. “We need to elect a new divine and obey her orders!”

“Again--” Ro said, taking a step forward, “I think we have more important things. Unless you haven’t noticed, there is a hole in the sky, and I’d like to try to fix it, if you don’t mind!”

He stared at her as if she’d grown another head, then turned to Cassandra, visibly uncomfortable with Ro, not knowing what level of authority with which he should be addressing her: prisoner or Hero of Ferelden? “Call a retreat, Seeker,” he demanded, eyes flicking to Ro as he did his best to ignore her. “Our position here is compromised.”

“We’re going to stop this before it’s too late!” Cassandra said, stepping forward, and Ro was impressed that Roderick held his ground before her intensity.

“You won’t survive to reach the temple and you know it!” Roderick accused.

“Then we’ll take the mountain pass,” Leliana said evenly, stepping in before Cassandra could do something she’d regret. “It’s longer, yes, but safer. Our forces can charge as a distraction.”

Ro blinked. She saw the sense in the plan. It was what she would have done. But the Leliana she had known would not have been so casual with people's lives. She would have sought a different way, a way in which less people were at risk--would have kept looking long after everyone else was convinced there was no other, safer way. The troops would not merely have been a distraction to her, they would have been _people_ she tried everything to save. Ro would have had to convince her that sacrifices must sometimes be made. This Leliana, though...she refused to meet Ro's eyes, and Ro wondered how much had changed about her friend in the years since they had beaten the Blight together.

“Abandon this now,” Roderick said quietly, and Ro turned her gaze on him, recognizing his fear. “Before more lives are lost.”

“We cannot,” she said firmly. “Not unless you want every demon the Fade has to offer spilling out of that thing and destroying everything in their wake. We can lose some soldiers now in an effort to close it, or we can lose the world. Which would you prefer?”

He bristled, but the Breach chose that moment to grow again, belching more demons into the ruins of the temple, causing the mark on Ro’s hand to flare with light and pain. She grit her teeth over any grimace or scream, refusing to let this puffed up Chantry bureaucrat see her weakened.

“We take the mountain path,” she ground out as the pain subsided again. “We end this now.”

Cassandra nodded. Leliana met her gaze with a look of fierce determination and put a hand on her shoulder as she passed, a brief squeeze for luck. Ro wondered if she shouldn’t take half a minute to write a note to Alistair before she realized that, if she failed, there would likely be no one left to get it to him. She sighed and settled her sword more comfortably on her hip.

“Oh,” she asked, as an afterthought, turning to Cassandra. “There isn’t any chance anyone has an extra sword lying around, is there?”

“I don’t think so,” the Seeker coolly. “Every blade is already being put to good use. Besides, I let you keep that one, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but I’m more used to--well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now,” Ro said, shrugging against the shield she had picked up with the one lost sword she had found. She had learned how to fight from her brother, who had taught her with two daggers they’d stolen from their father’s armory, and then from Duncan, who had trained her on double swords. Her dominant left hand would give her quite the edge, he’d said--so long ago now--and no one would be expecting a second blade there instead of a shield. But she supposed she’d just have to be glad that Alistair had shown her how to use a shield, too, even though it still felt heavy and awkward to her.

She led her motley crew up over the mountain, saving several of Leliana’s scouts--she was mildly surprised to find out that Leliana had scouts at her command, though she knew she shouldn’t be surprised at all--on the way. The path took them up and over the battlefield that raged at the edges of the crater caused by the explosion, soldiers in mismatched armor fighting to hold the demons still raging out of the Breach back. Ro winced at the thought of how many were dying. But then, how many had died during the Blight? Was this really so different?

 _You never get used to the end of the world_ , Alistair’s voice muttered in her head, and she almost laughed aloud at the thought. Perhaps she was getting used to it. Or at least, getting used to being the only one who could stop it.

The Breach was far more massive up close, and though she had faced the Deep Roads and an uncountable horde of darkspawn--not to mention a dragon laced with the Blight--and lived, she found that this was more frightening. This was...unthinkable. How did one fight the sky? 

She felt new nightmares clawing the corners of her mind as she looked up--and up--at the huge rift below the hole in the sky, and she fervently wished that Alistair were here right now. He would know exactly what to say to make her smile and forget her fear for the single moment it took to step toward danger instead of away from it. She took a deep breath, and led the way down the stairs to the rift.

_“Keep the sacrifice still.”_

Ro jumped as the voice rang out, too loud in the stillness. It was echoing, booming, deep and resonant among the blasted stones of the remains of the Temple. A shadow flickered in the corner of Ro’s eye, and she turned, blinking--there was nothing there, but there was a nagging feeling that she was missing something. That something had passed her by. That she was supposed to remember.

_“We have an intruder.”_

“What are we hearing?” Cassandra demanded sharply, and Ro shrugged at the Seeker.

“I don’t remember,” she said, matching Cassandra’s tone.

Before either of them could say anything else, the shadow flickered again, and Ro turned again, and this time, she had the surreal experience of seeing herself--or a thin, transparent echo of herself--darting forward toward the giant rift.

 _"What’s going on here?”_ the echo said, in her voice, and Ro blinked. She cursed softly under her breath, wishing Morrigan were here to explain what sort of magic, exactly, was happening. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen such echoes, but she felt like these were different. Tinged darker. More real.

 _“Run while you can! Warn them!”_ An oddly familiar voice sounded as another figure flickered into light, her white robes a contrast to the towering figure of shadow that loomed up against the rift, eyes burning like embers. The Divine was bound by red light--faded in the memory, but recognizably the color of the Blight. Ro sucked in a breath, and heard Cassandra gasp.

The booming voice launched itself into the ruins again, making Ro jump. _“We have an intruder. Kill the human.”_ A skeletal arm lifted, pointing toward the shadow of Ro, and a crackle of magic surged from the figure. There was a flash of light and the echoes faded, Ro writhing on the ground, the shadowy figure looming over her, the Divine, consumed.

“What was that?” Cassandra demanded.

“I don’t know!” Ro responded.

“You were _there_. Most Holy, she...she called out to you! Was this real?”

“I don’t know,” Ro repeated, gritting her teeth. “I can’t remember.”

“Echoes of what happened here,” Solas interjected, looking up at the rift. “The Fade bleeds in this place.” Though he sounded concerned, there was an undercurrent of excitement to his voice. Ro looked at him sharply. She’d been to the Fade. There was nothing there to be excited about.

Then again, she wasn’t a mage. Perhaps it was different for them.

“This rift is stable, but it’s not closed,” he steered the conversation away from Cassandra’s impromptu interrogation, back toward their purpose. “I believe you can use the mark to open it, and in turn, close it properly, which should seal the Breach, as this is the first and more powerful of the rifts. But there will likely be--”

“Demons,” Ro interrupted, glancing at Cassandra, who nodded and drew her sword, setting aside whatever resentment she still harbored. Ro was grateful. She drew her own sword, shifting it to her right hand, and raised her eyebrows at Leliana, who nodded firmly.

Ro took a deep breath, and raised her hand toward the rift. The tug of the magic was almost enough to yank her off her feet, and she staggered forward a step before focusing, digging her heels in, and letting the muscles in her arm slowly relax, letting the rift pull the magic out of her. She grit her teeth at the odd sensation, blinking at the light as it intensified. Did mages feel like this all the time? She shuddered internally at the thought of something so out of her control being part of her.

There was a burst of sparks and a demon clawed its way out of the rift in a crackling aura of light. It formed in a tangle of lightning and a hiss of low, guttural laughter that made the hair on the back of Ro’s neck stand up. She turned, putting her sword back in her left hand as she faced the pride demon--the largest she’d seen.

Leliana’s archers were already pelting it with arrows, and Ro darted forward with a scream, grabbing its attention. She heard Cassandra shout as well, and felt the cool tingle of a barrier settling around her skin, magical protection from Solas that she was honestly surprised to get from him. There was a comforting twang from a bow, and an arrow whizzed past her head from Leliana, standing behind her, and she grinned as she swung her sword into the beast’s leg. _Just like old times._

The shield in her right hand was clumsy and inelegant, but it did its job, catching a slam from the creature’s massive hand and shunting it off to her side as her knees buckled under the weight of the blow. She slammed the ungainly slab of metal into the demon’s side, forcing a grunt out of it as the air was driven from it--did demons breathe air the same as regular people?--before she hacked at it with her sword again. And again. They were wearing it down.

“Now!” There was a shout from across the battlefield, and Ro glanced up to see Solas pointing at the wavering rift behind her. Cassandra screamed at the demon, drawing it away from Ro so she could turn and lift her hand once more to the rift.

The pull was stronger this time, and Ro grunted with the effort, trembling as the magic fled her in streams. The ground shook slightly as the demon behind her fell, but she ignored it, concentrating. She squeezed her eyes shut, gave all her focus to the energy flowing through her hand, and did something she had never been very good at: she let go.

There was a burst of white light, tinged green, and she was blasted back off her feet. She remembered landing heavily on her shoulder, and then everything went black.

\---

The voices from the back room of the Chantry were heated and angry--Cassandra’s surprisingly the calmer of the two. Ro was vaguely surprised to hear the Seeker defending her, considering their previous meeting had been...less than friendly. There were two guards at the door who ignored her, and though she felt like she was interrupting, they were, after all, talking about her.

“Sorry to barge in,” she said, letting the door swing open against the wall.

“Arrest her!” Roderick shouted immediately, waving a finger in her direction. The guards stepped forward, but neither of them seemed willing to actually lay a hand on her. “Take her Val Royeaux to stand trial!”

“Ignore him,” Cassandra said. “And leave us.” They didn’t hesitate to follow that order, saluting and closing the door behind them.

“You are overstepping your bounds, Seeker,” Roderick said in a voice that might have been threatening from a man who was perhaps twice as forceful as him. Or a man not wearing his ridiculous hat.

“The Breach is stable,” Cassandra countered. “But it is still a threat. One I refuse to ignore.”

“I’m only sorry I couldn’t do more,” Ro said quietly. Cassandra’s gaze flicked to her with something like approval, and Ro offered her half a smile.

“And yet, here you stand, alive and well. Perhaps you didn’t do as much as you could have,” Roderick said, turning on her in a blaze of anger.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Forgive me for surviving. I’m sure everything would have been much easier for you if I’d died. I’m not sure how you would have closed the Breach even this much, but I’m sure you would have figured it out.”

Roderick quailed.

“We still don’t know who was behind this explosion,” Leliana emerged from the shadows at the back wall, arms crossed as she approached the table in the middle of the room, standing beside Cassandra. Ro was relieved to see her, and shot a look her way that begged for a conversation later. Leliana’s lips twitched up in a smile for a second, acknowledging the look, before she turned back to Roderick. “It was certainly someone Most Holy did not suspect. Perhaps they died at the Conclave. Or perhaps they have allies who yet live.” Her voice hardened as she surveyed Roderick coolly. He quailed again.

“ _I_...am a suspect?”

“You,” Leliana said evenly, indifferent to his outrage, “and many others.”

“But not the prisoner? Not the only person to survive when everyone else was destroyed?”

“I was there,” Cassandra said, taking a step forward as Roderick stepped back. “I heard the voices in the Temple. Most Holy called out to her for help.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Roderick snapped. “Just because she called for help doesn’t mean that help was given!”

“If you really think _the Hero of Ferelden_ would not aid those in need,” Leliana said, incredulous, “I do not know what to say to persuade you. You do not know her as I do.”

“It’s been ten years since the Blight ended,” Roderick said dismissively. “Perhaps she’s changed.”

"I would appreciate it if you all stopped talking about me as if I wasn’t here,” Ro interrupted.

Roderick stared at her, clearly unsure how to respond. He had rather liked ignoring her. It meant he didn't have to figure out if she was a prisoner or someone he needed to bow to.

“I have tried my very best not to die twice now,” Ro said, crossing her arms and stepping forward. “Both times, I have woken up alone and confused and suspected, despite the fact that this--” she held up her hand, the green magic sparking under her skin as she gestured, “--seems to be the only way to stop whatever is happening to the world now. I would like to use it to continue helping. I would like to ask your help in researching it so that it does not kill me. I would like to continue living my quiet life rebuilding the Wardens of Ferelden and not bothering anyone and staying out of everyone’s way. But we can’t have everything we want, so in lieu of that last wish, I’ll take being allowed to help.

"I saved the world once before. What makes you think that I want to destroy it now?”

Roderick blinked and his shoulders slumped. Leliana smiled at Ro briefly before raising her eyebrows at Cassandra, who nodded. She produced a thick book from the other side of the room, a leather cover emblazoned with a vaguely familiar symbol. Roderick blinked again, staring from the book to the Seeker and back again. He opened his mouth to protest, but Cassandra cut him off.

“You know what this is: a writ from the Divine, declaring the Inquisition reformed. We are going to close the Breach, and restore order, with or without your approval,” she said, advancing on Roderick as, this time, he backed away from her intensity. “You can either help us or get out.”

He left, the door banging behind him, and the guards gently closed it behind him again, as Leliana sighed.

“Well, that went well,” she said.

Cassandra shrugged. “We don’t need him.”

“We might need the Chantry support he brings with him.”

“We never had that before,” Ro said quietly. “I’m sure we’ll be alright without it now. Besides, we have you and Cassandra. Certainly the Left and Right Hands of the Divine are enough Chantry to be getting on with.”

Leliana let out a huff of laughter. Cassandra’s brow furrowed, but the corners of her mouth twitched up in the beginnings of a smile she couldn’t stop.

“We don’t have much choice,” Cassandra said. “We have to act now. The longer we take, the more the world is going to fall apart.” She sighed and turned to Ro. “I don’t know that you did everything you could to help the Divine. I don’t know if you could have done more, or if you would have died if you had tried to save her. But I do know that you never backed down from a fight, in all the stories, and that you always tried to help. I suppose they can’t all be wrong. If that still holds true... help us.” She hesitated, then held out her hand.

Ro smiled and took it, gripping it reassuringly. Or, she hoped it was reassuring. “Of course,” she said. “This is...well, it’s the world. No one else is going to fix it, so we might as well.”

Leliana smiled. “Just like old times.”

.


	2. The Threat

“That was a grand waste of time,” Ro said with a sigh as she entered the back room of the Chantry at Haven, leaning heavily against the newly-christened war table, pulling her gloves off as she spoke. They’d been back from Val Royeaux for a grand total of ten minutes and though she was wishing for a blanket and a corner to curl up in, she knew the necessity of reports. “The templars are gone--the Lord Seeker dragged them all off, some kicking and screaming louder than the others--so we won’t get any help from that quarter. And considering the Chantry was all set up to sacrifice us to the templars’ blades, I don’t think we’re going to get much support there, either. We’ll have to soldier on with the Left and Right Hands and no body to speak of.”

“Well, we knew it was a long shot,” Leliana said with a sigh of her own, gaze sweeping across the map before them, eyeing certain pins that had been left as markers in certain places.

“Speaking of, can I talk to y--” Ro began, but before she could finish, Leliana had rifled through the stack of reports in front of her and found the one she was looking for with a loud, “Aha!” Ro jumped slightly, as Leliana slapped the report down on the table.

“This will amuse you, my friend,” she said. “There’s a family in Ostwick, the Trevelyans. They are trying desperately to prove that they are related to you, so that they can trade on your new-found fame and increase their standings in the Free Marches. Isn’t it ridiculous?”

Ro frowned. “It’s certainly...something. Are we sure I’m _not_ related to them? There are some strange branches in my family tree.”

“None so strange as this claim, my lady.” Josephine’s soft voice sounded from the doorway as she slipped into the room, her ever-present writing board hovering before her. “This is an already distant fifth cousin of the actual Trevelyan family. Which would put him something like eighth cousin, four times removed from you. Honestly, it’s the thinnest shred of connection, but he’s certainly trying.”

“I didn’t realize one could be that distantly related,” Ro said, blinking.

“I believe your nine-times great grandmothers were sisters, so truly, you’re not really. Not any more than every noble house is somehow connected, anyway. I can sort it out if you like?”

“I suggested we pretend to send assassins,” Leliana chimed in. “But Josie disapproves.”

“Assassins?”

“Not actual assassins, just the _rumor_ of assassins.”

“Wouldn’t that solidify their claim?” Ro asked. “If we find them dangerous enough to send trained killers after them, would it not seem like we were legitimately worried about them?”

Leliana pouted. “You’re not half so much fun as I remember. But all right, we’ll do it your way, Josephine.” She stuck a new pin into the small dot representing Ostwick on the map.

“Shouldn’t we be discussing what happened in Val Royeaux?” a new voice asked from the doorway, and Ro straightened up uncomfortably, slapping her gloves against her thigh as Cullen entered the room. He glanced at her nervously, and she felt rather then heard him suppressing a sigh as he made his way around the table to his usual spot and the stack of reports stamped with the red fist of the Forces branch of the Inquisition’s growing numbers.

It had been an uncomfortable sort of reunion when, after Cassandra had declared the Inquisition reformed, the Seeker had led Ro back into the War Room to meet the leaders of the newly forged splinter group and she’d been confronted with a blast from the past. Cullen had started hopeful, half a smile tugging at his lips as Cassandra introduced him, but it had fallen stiffly from his face at Ro’s curt, “We’ve met.” He’d reminded her that their forces were small, their army decimated by the diversional charge that had let her reach the Breach, which had only served to stir up the guilt she felt at sending those soldiers to their deaths. Coupled with their history--a brief, but gruesome meeting in the Tower at Lake Calenhad ten years ago--the lingering dislike had boiled into something worse. It was obvious by the drop in temperature every time they were in the same room together that they’d gotten off on the wrong foot. To say the least.

Leliana had attempted to be a mediating presence, and, in as few as three meetings of this council, Ro had already learned that she would do anything to avoid disappointing Josephine, so through these combined efforts, Ro’s interactions with the Commander had risen from icy to simply cool. But there was a long grudge waiting to be dragged out into the light, on both sides, and it was obvious that the two of them would devolve into something ugly sooner rather than later. Watching him scanning his reports briefly before looking up at her through narrowed, calculating eyes, Ro knew that the only reason they weren’t already at each other’s throats was because she had been sent off to the Hinterlands almost as soon as the Inquisition’s charter had been nailed to the door, and she had only returned briefly before heading off to Val Royeaux and the disaster that waited there.

“What is there to discuss?” she said testily. “The Chantry wanted to throw us bodily onto the templars upturned swords, but the templars, it seems, are having too much fun hunting mages to bother with us, and they disappeared into the sunset, unconcerned with the larger problems the world is currently facing. Seems to be a habit of theirs.” She almost regretted the stab of the last few words as Cullen winced, knowing exactly to what she was referring, but his next words drove any remorse from her.

“Well, yes, it’s a habit of the templars to deal with the danger of the mages. But this does seem...extreme. We need to make contact with them anyway,” he said definitively, slashing a hand in front of him, as if brushing away any argument. “I’m sure that not everyone in the Order agrees with Lord Seeker Lucius.”

“They followed him willingly enough out of the capital,” Ro said, shrugging. “Besides, Fiona invited us to Redcliffe, which gives us an opening to go talk to the mages.”

“We’ve discussed this before,” Cullen said, sighing. “The templars can suppress the Breach. Which seems a damn sight better than pouring more power into it!”

“It seems logical to me that, when faced with something magical, you get the foremost experts _on magic_ to deal with it,” Ro ground out through clenched teeth. “But regardless, I’m not in charge of this little Inquisition, so perhaps you four should make a decision and we can get on with it.”

“I agree,” Cassandra said, crossing her arms.

“I have to get back to the Hinterlands anyway,” Ro said. “Those refugees at the Crossroads are still in need of a healer, and there are a few other issues I’d like to clear up. I can at least stop by Redcliffe while I’m there, and see what exactly the rebel mages are offering. In the meantime, perhaps you can send some people out to at least figure out where the templars have retreated to? Then we’ll have opened avenues in both directions and you all can decide from there.”

“Seems reasonable,” Josephine said quickly before Cullen could speak. He snapped his mouth closed around whatever he’d been about to say and nodded. Leliana added a few more pins to the map, and sighed.

“Don’t get distracted, Ro,” she said, frowning down at the number of pins sticking out of the Hinterlands. “You can’t save everyone. And we have bigger problems than some farmer’s lost ring.”

Ro rolled her eyes. “Forgive me for wanting to be kind. I thought I’d at least go close the rifts in the area, but if you’d rather have demons in our own backyard, I’ll just ignore those and carry on with the politicking.”

“There’s no need to get snappy with me,” Leliana said evenly. “I was merely reminding you that this is bigger than last time.”

“I managed to stop the Blight _and_ save all the nugs in Orzammar, if you recall. I know what I’m doing, Leli.”

Leliana frowned, but relented. She raised her eyebrows at Cassandra, who simply nodded. Ro sighed, aware that they had just communicated without words, but she was too tired to parse the meaning. She was sure it was something along the lines of, “Please stop her from helping every small child find their stuffed animal; we really don’t have the time.”

“Anything else I should be aware of?” she asked instead, glancing up at Josephine and Cullen, both of whom nodded and handed her a stack of reports. “Right,” she said, and rifled through them as they took turns summarizing. As a group, the five members of the council worked through the stacks of requests and rumors, operations and obligations, deciding whether to send scouts or soldiers, gold or golden tongues to spread the Inquisition’s influence and reputation throughout southern Thedas. By the time they’d finished, Ro’s stomach was growling, and all she wanted to do was shed her armor and sleep for a week. But she reminded Cassandra to be ready to depart for the Hinterlands early the next morning, and promised to ask Sera and Vivienne to accompany them personally.

“Oh, yes, who exactly is this...Sera?” Josephine asked as she packed up her papers, readying to head back to her office. “I’m extremely pleased you managed to recruit Madame de Fer to our cause, of course--that was well-played--but I’m not entirely sure what Sera plans to accomplish with us.”

“Ah, yes,” Ro said, shrugging uncomfortably. She had known that they would eventually come to talk about the other half of her trip to Val Royeaux--the part that hadn’t gone horribly wrong, of course--but she hadn’t really thought about what she was going to say. “Lady Vivienne was terribly kind; she actually offered her aid to us. I...honestly, I really think she’s the sort of person one can’t say no to, and she’s certainly a powerful ally, both politically and...you know, magically. I suppose I didn’t want her as an enemy, either personal or for the Inquisition, so I hope I didn’t overstep my authority or anything by accepting her offer.”

“Not at all,” Leliana said, and there was a faint smile on her face. “Vivienne is a terrifying sort of amazing. It would have been disastrous if you’d refused her, no matter how polite you might have been. She could have destroyed the Inquisition with a few words in the right ear. She’s one of the most accomplished players of the Game I’ve ever met.”

Ro grinned. “She beat you at something, didn’t she? Some grand scheme, some ducal seat was snatched from under your nose, or some perfectly crafted scandal was completely unravelled, wasn’t it?”

Leliana didn’t flush, but her cheeks turned slightly pinker than usual, and she busied herself with packing away the unused pins. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll just ask Varric to ask Vivienne,” Ro said, still smiling. “He’ll wheedle it out of her.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Leliana said dryly. “But what about Sera?”

“Yes, all right,” Ro said, her smile slipping a bit. “I...look, I knew you’d act like this, but I think she can be very useful. She has connections in every major city in the south, and access to a network almost as dense as yours. And she...well, she’s quite a force for good in the world, I think.”

“Isn’t she connected with the Red Jennies?” Leliana asked.

Cullen scoffed. “Those jumped-up troublemakers who humiliate arls so that their servants can have a laugh? Certainly, a real force for good, I’m sure.”

Ro frowned. “Having known a fair few arls who could have done with a good humiliation, and having known a fair few servants who deserve a good laugh every now and then, I’d say, yes, a very good force for good. Not everything needs to be grand gestures and...and holes in the sky. Small things have wide-spread effects. Haven’t you ever thrown a pebble into a pond and watched how far the ripples stretched?”

“Perhaps,” he hedged, “but aren’t they sometimes...dangerous? I mean, perhaps they’re just rumors, but don’t the Red Jennies sometimes murder people?”

“I don’t know, but if they had, I certainly couldn’t be the one to judge them,” Ro said quietly. Leliana’s eyes narrowed as she watched her friend’s face fall, and Josephine stilled, but Cullen hadn’t noticed. He let out a laugh that rang hollowly through the cramped room. He stopped quickly, realizing that no one else had joined in, and he turned to Ro, concerned.

“You were...that was a joke, right?” he said. “You certainly haven’t murdered anyone. Not in cold blood, anyway.”

Ro didn’t say anything, but her thoughts fled back down through the long, maze-like corridors under the Howes’ estate in Denerim. She smelled, once again, the blood, the stench of torture and long imprisonments. She heard the snap of bones behind her, Alistair taking out guards as she squared off against the Butcher of Denerim and all he had done to her, to her people, to the people of the city... She felt, once again, the slight resistance of his skin before it broke around her blade, and she slid the metal up between his ribs. _I deserved more_ , he had said, and she remembered thinking, _Aye, more pain, perhaps_ , and shuddering at her own brutality. But then, he had killed her nephew in his sleep, after all. Didn’t she rather deserve to stab him through the heart?

“If I had,” she said finally, gravely, “would _you_ be the one to judge _me_ , Cullen?”

He stared at her for a long time, and she felt Leliana’s gaze too, heavy on her face, and she wanted, very suddenly, to be gone, to run hard and fast and let the winter air slap her face until she felt human again.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said finally, standing up straight, and pushing a hand through her hair, uncomfortable. “I recruited her. If you want to throw her out, fine, but I think she can be an asset. Until she proves otherwise, perhaps give her the benefit of the doubt. If there’s nothing else to be discussed, I’m going to go find the kitchen and then possibly a bed, if that’s all right with you people.” She didn’t wait for their approval, but turned on her heel and left the room, the door swinging closed on the uncomfortably silent room behind her.

\---

Ro had bad dreams that night.

It had been a while, she realized, since she’d had nightmares this severe. Of course, being a Warden, she had gotten used to nightmares fairly quickly after her Joining--the Archdemon had plagued her dreams all through the course of the Fifth Blight. Over a year of that blighted dragon swooping out of the darkness to claw at her face, to burn Alistair into ash, to lift Leliana in its claws and drop her to her death. After they’d killed the Archdemon, there had been other dreams--darkspawn, and dead things, and old wounds that refused to heal. And though she’d woken up screaming more nights than she’d be willing to try to count, the dreams had lessened over the years. She had supposed she was healing.

As she woke that night in a cold sweat, shuddering under her blankets and unable to breathe for several moments after realizing she was awake, the idea of _healing_ seemed laughable.

She ached for Alistair. They’d woken each other up enough times that they didn’t even have to talk about what the dreams were. They’d simply held one another until the shaking stopped, and gone back to sleep. Or else slouched to the kitchen, half-asleep, to make tea, blankets wrapped around shoulders as the sun crept up through the open windows. They’d both been getting better. It had been ten years of slow progress, but they had been getting _better_.

Ro sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight, and stood up, pacing barefoot around the tiny house they’d given her, along with assurances that no one had been kicked out of it. She hadn’t asked what had happened to the previous occupant--the saddened gazes of Haven’s villagers had told her enough. She put a kettle on the small hearth and forced herself to sit down, ostensibly resting even if she couldn’t sleep. But the headache building behind her eyes didn’t exactly leave much of her relaxed.

Now that she thought about it, she supposed she should have been expecting this nightmare. The threat had loomed over her long enough, and she couldn’t muster up the energy to be surprised that it had fallen on her now. The world was ending, there was a hole in the sky, demons were attacking every part of the south of Thedas, and she found it seemed only natural that she should begin hearing the Calling now.

Never mind that Duncan had promised them thirty years. Of course, he hadn’t gotten thirty years, but then, none of the Ferelden Wardens had served their full time thanks to Loghain. She wondered how many of them would have taken the Long Walk to the Deep Roads in the ten years since the Blight, if they’d lived through it. It didn’t seem fair--it had never seemed fair--that the Wardens could live through so much only to be destroyed by their own blood. She had thought that by the time it had been her turn, she would have found a way out, would have found a cure, would have _saved_ them. But Leliana’s letter had found her in the middle of her dead-end, fruitless search and she had thought that she had twenty more years to figure it out, and she had paused and come back and...

And now here she was: a second magic in her veins, trying to kill her, and the music in her head while she slept. She crushed tea leaves into the boiling water and frowned, listening. The music was still there.

It was fainter now that she was awake, more of an echo than the crashing tide of discordant bars that had been thundering through her nightmares. But it was there; a droning hum in the back of her mind, a persistent strain of notes she couldn’t quite shake, couldn’t quite ignore. If she focused on it for too long, she knew, she would fall headfirst into it and have a hell of a time crawling back up out of it. If she ever did.

With an almighty internal heave, she shoved the melody to the back of her mind, letting the threat of it whisper to her as she forced herself to think of other things, to concentrate on something--anything--else. She got dressed in the pre-dawn light filtering through the cracks in the shutters, finished off her tea, and left the little house, heading for the stack of reports she knew awaited her in the war room.

Leliana was already there, dark circles under her eyes as she leaned over the table, tracing out supply lines in faint charcoal marks.

“Isn’t that part of Cullen’s job?” Ro asked quietly, leaning against the other side of the table. Leliana just smiled faintly and kept drawing.

“That depends. What kind of supplies are coming along these routes?” she said.

“Ah,” Ro said, realizing that they were less supply lines and more safe passages for Leliana’s spies and agents. “I won’t ask then.” She grabbed the nearest report from the stack of files not marked with Forces, Secrets, or Connections--the rather redundant titles that had been given to Cullen’s, Leliana’s, and Josephine’s sectors of influence--and opened it to stare blearily at the cramped writing covering the page.

“You’re awake early,” Leliana remarked, voice tired.

“I could say the same of you,” Ro said, not looking up from the report. The Calling reared its head in the back of her mind, and she shoved it down again. So it was to be an ongoing battle. She sighed.

“When do you leave for the Hinterlands again?” Leliana asked.

“Mm, later this morning, I think,” Ro said. “Those rifts aren’t going to close themselves, and I feel useless sitting around here.”

“I thought you’d gotten used to paperwork, what with commanding the wardens all these years.” There was a note of amusement in Leliana’s voice, and Ro sent a glare her way.

“Oh, the paperwork got done,” she said lightly. “I wouldn’t say I got used to doing it, though.”

“You make Alistair do all the paperwork, don’t you?”

“Not all of it,” Ro said loftily. “We share reports. But I mean, he’s out in the field and then he comes home! I have to train the recruits every day, and go on patrols every day, and...and my job is ongoing, while _his_ job is here and there! He has time for paperwork!”

Leliana gave her a withering look. Ro withstood it for a full thirty seconds before they both burst into laughter. It was short lived as they both fell back to their early-morning tasks. Ro could barely concentrate--the report was vital, but boring--and the Calling kept rolling through her, forcing her to periodically grit her teeth and refocus her efforts on the page in front of her.

“Are you all right?” Leliana asked suddenly from the other side of the table, and Ro glanced up, realizing that her friend had been watching her for some time now.

“I don’t know,” Ro said honestly, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Is it the mark?” Leliana asked, gesturing toward Ro’s left hand. The Warden shook her head. Leliana frowned. “Tell me,” she said.

Ro sighed, closing the report. “It’s nothing,” she began, shaking her head again. “Just...Warden stuff.” Leliana raised an eyebrow, straightening. “You don’t have to worry,” Ro said hurriedly, trying to reassure her friend--and failing.

“I always worry,” Leliana said, shuffling through her stack of reports. “Here--” she held out a thin file stamped with her raven, and Ro took it, frowning. She skimmed the first of the two pages in the report, and stared up at Leliana in confusion.

“What does this mean?” she asked quietly.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Leliana hoisted herself up onto the table, moving aside a box of pins and a stack of reports so she could sit on the edge. “It seems it’s been coming on slowly--a few months ago, it was a rumor here and there, and then suddenly, it was everywhere: all the Fereldan Grey Wardens vanished. I sent word to those in Orlais, but they have also disappeared. I admit, when I sent you that letter about coming to the Conclave, it was more so that I could be sure you wouldn’t also disappear than for any political reasons. I didn’t really expect to find you, and was surprised when you beat me to Haven.”

“A few _months_ ,” Ro repeated, outrage creeping into her voice. “You didn’t think to tell me until now?”

"I thought you had bigger things on your mind," Leliana said gently, glancing again at Ro's left hand.

Ro just glared at her. She was suddenly terrified, a cold spike of ice growing in her heart as she thought about Alistair, about all her recruits back at the barracks in Amaranthine--she couldn’t imagine that building empty, but here Leliana was, telling her they were all gone. “All of them?”

“That’s the thing,” Leliana said, one finger tapping the report Ro still held loosely in one hand. “Two days ago, my scouts heard rumor of a Warden in the Hinterlands. Since you’re going back there, perhaps you can seek him out. Maybe he has answers.”

“Maybe he does,” Ro said, voice choked. She opened the file again, scanning Leliana’s neat handwriting for information beyond what the spymaster had just told her. But there was nothing.

“Blackwall?” Ro said, noting the name scribbled at the end of a sentence.

“Mm. Do you know him?”

“I...I know of him,” Ro said, trying to remember the long lists of rosters, recruiting reports, and staff changes she’d combed through over the years. “He’s...senior--no, Warden-Constable? Of one of the Orlesian outposts. Val Chevin, maybe?” She shook her head. “This doesn’t make any sense. Where would they have gone?”

“And why haven’t you gone with them?” Leliana asked, shrugging. “That’s more my concern. If they’ve all been spirited away, why were you left behind?”

“All the southern Wardens,” Ro murmured, eyes narrowing as she thought. “Orlais first, then Ferelden, if these rumors are accurate...” She tapped the report again. “Maybe it’s not...” she fell silent. Leliana watched her, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation that did not seem to be forthcoming. Ro looked up at her, considering, biting her lip as she fought a brief, silent war with herself. What did the secrets of the order matter, honestly, in the face of this sort of crisis?

“Maybe it’s not the Calling,” Ro said finally, quietly, pressing down the sudden increased volume of the song that seemed to know when it was being talked about. Leliana’s eyes widened.

“Is that what--?”

“Last night,” Ro said, tapping the side of her head. “You’re not supposed to know about it, but I don’t much care about secrets, if everyone is gone.” She sighed. “It’s the threat every Warden lives under from the moment of their Joining on. The price we pay.” She shrugged as Leliana reached out and covered Ro’s hand with her own, a brief touch of comfort. “There’s nothing we can do about it, but prepare. But I thought maybe there might be. I was looking for a cure when your letter found me. I was...northwest. A long way away. Too far, perhaps, to hear whatever magic is pretending to be a Calling for every Warden in the south...” She hesitated, not sure if her theory was fully formed enough to voice out loud.

“You think it’s fake,” Leliana said, understanding. “There’s something causing this...disappearance. Something that’s not the Calling?”

“If it were a real Calling, it wouldn’t be this...widespread,” Ro explained. “It doesn’t happen to every Warden at once; there are...conditions to be met.” She hedged, hoping Leliana understood without further explanation. They tried so hard to keep the secrets.

Leliana was nodding though, and Ro took that as a sign she’d gotten her point across well enough. Or that Leliana understood what she was trying to do.

“I take it your conditions haven’t been met, but you’re hearing it, too?”

Ro nodded. “I wasn’t before, but last night... I’m wondering if they thought they’d gotten everyone, if they put out some sort of false Calling in Orlais and then in Ferelden, and they assumed everyone had listened, so they...stopped it. Turned it off. Whatever it was. But then...” she hesitated. “But then, if they heard that I was still...here. Free. Maybe they are...trying again.”

Leliana frowned. “But if you know it’s false, are you in any danger?” she asked. “Can you resist, or...?”

“Oh, I’m trying,” Ro said, gritting her teeth as the music surged again, as if on cue. “Trust me.” She glanced up at the concern in Leliana’s eyes, and forced a smile. “Don’t worry; I’ll try my best not to disappear into the ether.”

“Good,” Leliana said briskly, sliding down off the edge of the table and gathering up her reports. “Because I’d miss you terribly. We should really find breakfast, you know.” She said the last part quickly, inhaling unsteadily as she finished squaring her files into a neat stack. Ro found herself confronted again with the new Leliana, the one who saw emotion as weakness, the one who tried not to show how much she cared.

“Leli,” she began, but the spymaster banged open the door of the war room and grabbed her old friend by the elbow, steering her out of the Chantry and into the winter morning.

“You’ve a long day ahead, if you’re leaving for the Hinterlands, so you’re going to need a good breakfast. Let’s find Varric; he always knows which of the camps made the best porridge today.” And Ro knew that she would keep talking until they found Varric, who would then take up the thread of chattering, and she wouldn’t get a word in edgewise. She sighed. Leliana, it seemed, had become extremely good at avoiding subjects she wished to ignore--namely, herself. Ro dragged her to a stop outside the tavern, turning her friend so she could make eye contact.

“We’re going to have to talk when I get back,” Ro said seriously. “I know you don’t want to, but it’s important.”

Leliana sighed. “I know,” she said quietly, sadly. “But you cannot begrudge me for putting it off as long as possible.”

“I don’t even know what _it_ is,” Ro prodded gently.

Leliana met her gaze, eyes sad and pleading. “You being disappointed in me.”

Ro stood thunderstruck for a moment, then pulled the bard to her in a hug without a word. Leliana froze for a moment, then carefully put her arms around her old friend, who simply tightened her grip until the spymaster gave in and hugged her back.

“You’re my best friend, Leli,” Ro whispered. “ _Talk_ to me when I get back.”

Leliana nodded against her shoulder before pulling away and taking a deep, shaking breath. “All right. But for now, breakfast.” She said the last with such a fierce glare that Ro laughed, reminded forcibly of Leliana dragging Morrigan to the main fire at camp and making her join the group for dinner one night. She relayed the memory to Leliana, whose face softened into a smile of her own as she led the way inside the tavern to dredge Varric out of his morning hangover.

.


	3. The Recruit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry for the wait on this one; Blackwall is not my most comfortable of headspaces, and writing him was...difficult to say the least. Anyway, I should hopefully be at least semi-back on track now, with something less than over two months between updates.)

Liarora paused at the top of the hill, catching her breath, and resisting the urge to plop down on the ground. Behind her, Sera danced after a fox, scaring it into the underbrush with a giggle, and Ro smiled wryly, envying the younger woman. The Warden wasn’t exactly as young as she used to be, and ten years of the Taint probably wasn’t helping. Speaking of...

She closed her eyes, pushing the Calling to the back of her mind with an internal frown. She focused on the area around her, breathing in the familiar scent of the Hinterlands--old woods and tall grasses and always that hint of farmland no matter which way the wind was blowing--and felt for the presence of the Taint. She still wasn’t sure how it worked, but that extra sense for blighted creatures was terribly useful when tracking down lost Wardens. Which made it odd that she sensed nothing but herself by the lake.

She frowned, and Cassandra raised an eyebrow.

“Something wrong?” the Seeker asked lightly.

Ro sighed. “Perhaps he’s moved on,” she said, shrugging. “Or perhaps there never was a Warden here.”

“How do you know?” Sera asked, tweaking her bow to hang straighter across her shoulders. “You get all tingly in your bits or something?”

Ro flashed her half a grin. “Or something,” she confirmed, then scanned the area again. Still nothing. She briefly wondered if the Calling--the false Calling--was doing something to block out her senses, to dampen the feel of the Taint. But she dismissed the thought with a shake of her head; the false Calling was not there to interfere. It was there to seduce. It seemed much more likely that whatever Warden had been here in the last few days had simply moved on.

“We can still look around a bit, darling,” Vivienne said softly from behind her, and Ro nodded, grateful that the Enchanter seemed to have realized how important this wild goose chase was to Ro.

Ro started off around the lake, and the other women fanned out behind her, letting her lead the way. She sighed. It was rather like old times, when Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan had followed her--rather blindly, in her opinion--around the Brecillian Wilds for _days_. She rather hoped they’d find this Blackwall sooner than that, even without her Warden senses functioning.

It was beautiful here--she had hiked some of these paths back during the Blight, when Redcliffe had been under siege by the dead, and they had barreled in, ready to help, completely unprepared for what they were walking into. She found the familiarity of this situation oddly calming--here she was, once again in the Hinterlands, once again running around a breaking world with no knowledge of what she was really dealing with, and once again with only a handful of very new friends to help her. There was a cyclical nature to her current adventure, right down to the missing Wardens. Of course, last time, the Wardens had been dead. She rather hoped that was not the case this time.

It wasn’t long before they found a shallow ford at the upper end of the lake and made their way back down to where Ro vaguely remembered there being some family’s summer home--it was idyllic enough, with the waterfalls and the lake and the mountains in the background like snowy fingers reaching for the sky. She had even camped here once, with Alistair, on a frigidly cold night several winters after the Blight had ended. They’d been looking for a recruit and ended up nearly freezing to death, huddled around a fire in the abandoned house.

It had ended up being quite a good night.

Now, nestled among the trees, the roof of the house came into view, accompanied by the sounds of training--measured _thwacks_ of swords on wooden shields, a gruff voice calling positions and encouragement and corrections, and the occasional grunt of exertion. Ro raised her eyebrows, glancing over her shoulder at the other women. Cassandra loosened her sword in its sheathe, and Sera twirled an arrow in her fingers, and unslung her bow. Ro copied Cassandra and stepped into the clearing.

There were four men--clearly farmers, by their rough clothes and weathered faces--squared off in pairs, half-heartedly taking swings at each other with swords that had almost definitely been scrounged from dead bandits or soldiers. A fifth man--the gruff voice belonged to him--was pacing between the farmers, correcting stances and grips. Ro blinked and pulled up: he was wearing a half-breastplate, not as cumbersome as her own armor, over well-worn leathers. While the bulk of his armor was not even Warden colors, the breastplate bore the rampant gryphon. Ro hesitated, sending out her sixth sense again, but there was nothing. There was no way this man was a Warden.

Sera glanced at her with raised eyebrows, pointing at the breastplate and tilting her head curiously. Vivienne leaned on her staff, regarding the farmers nonchalantly. Cassandra was scanning the area, always on alert, but she threw Ro an inquisitive look when their eyes met. Ro shrugged, and stepped forward.

“Blackwall?” she called, deciding this must be him. Clearly there was something strange going on here. “ _Warden_ Blackwall?”

He started, hand going to his sword, but he didn’t draw. Ro watched his eyes sweep their party, counting them, their weapons, and his shoulders squared under his armor as he strode toward them.

“Who are you?” he said, and the farmers behind him stopped trading blows to watch. “How do you know my name?”

“We’re with the Inquisition,” Ro said, gesturing vaguely toward Cassandra out of habit. “We have some questions about the Wardens and why they’ve gone missing.”

“They’ve nothing to do with your Inquisition,” he said defensively, half-lifting his shield in front of him. Ro’s eyes narrowed.

“Some of us do,” she said cooly, and one finger tapped the edge of her armor. The man’s eyes followed her movement, and he took a step backward.

“I’m not--” Whatever protest he’d been about to make was cut off by the hiss of an arrow. It thunked into his shield a second later, punching through the leather-covered wood, quivering. He cursed. “Whatever questions you have will have to wait until we’ve dealt with these damn bandits,” he growled, raising his sword and turning to the farmers, who all gripped their blades tighter, straightening up under his fierce gaze. “Conscripts!” he shouted. Ro started at the word, staring at the back of the man’s head in confusion. “Defend yourselves!”

He led the charge toward the group of bandits now emerging from the trees. The farmers stared at each other for a moment before running after him, their sword points dipping, their shields held low and unsteady. Ro sighed, quirked her head at her companions, who all nodded, and stepped forward to join the battle.

It was a quick, dirty thing, and Ro almost felt bad for the bandits.

The man who wasn’t a Warden turned to the farmers as the last bandit fell. “Right,” he said, wiping his sword on the grass before straightening up. “Well done, conscripts. Wish this hadn’t been necessary, but...well, thieves are made, not born. Take back whatever they stole from you and get home to your families. You’ve defended them well. Keep doing that.”

The farmers hesitated a moment, but they knew a dismissal when they heard one. They hefted their swords, and one or two of them rifled through the bandits’ pockets before they all trooped off down the hill. Ro watched them go, one eyebrow raised. She considered going after them, offering to take them into the Inquisition, give them proper training, proper skills, beyond whatever they’d picked up in two days from this wanderer. But before she could, the man rounded on her.

“Now, how do you know my name?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. His sword was planted, tip down in the dirt, within easy reach despite the show of disarming. Ro frowned.

“That’s not how conscription works,” she said, gesturing after the farmers. “I should know.”

He scoffed. “These idiots forced a fight, so I ‘conscripted’ their victims,” he said, pointing to the dead bandits. Ro could almost hear the air quotes in his voice. “They had to do what I said, so I told them to fight, stand up for themselves. Next time there are bandits, they won’t need me.”

Ro rolled her eyes. “Did you never think to _actually_ conscript the bandits? I can’t fault you for training the farmers, I suppose--it’s good they have some measure of self-defense now--but here lie five fighting men the Wardens could have used.”

The man blinked. Ro stared him down until his gaze dropped to the ground.

“You didn’t know that was how it worked, did you?” she asked, voice cold. “After all, you’re not a Warden.”

He growled at her accusation and took a step forward, one hand dropping to the hilt of his sword, even as his eyes flicked over her armor again, over her companions still defensive behind her.

“What’re you talking about?” he said, the fear in his eyes quickly hidden behind anger.

“I thought you would have information,” she said, and it was her turn to drop a hand to the hilt of her sword. “I thought you’d somehow escaped, that you could tell me what happened to the Wardens, where they’ve gone, why they went. I thought you’d have answers about this _damn song in my head_ , but you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“The Wardens are gone?” he asked, blinking in surprise. “What do you mean, gone?”

“They’ve disappeared,” Cassandra said from behind her.

“Well--” he hesitated. “It’s not a Blight, is it? We did our job.”

“Wardens don’t abandon their posts just because there isn’t an archdemon flying around anymore,” Ro hissed, taking a step forward. “The Warden-Constable of Val Chevin would know that.”

“I’m just out here recruiting,” the man said defensively. “Not much interest since the Blight’s been done for ten years, but--”

“Next time you murder someone and steal their identity, I’d suggest you better research them, _Warden Blackwall_. Or do you have an explanation for why an officer of the Orlesian Wardens decided the heartland of Ferelden was a good place to recruit?”

He spluttered a moment, staring at her, scrambling for something to say. She took another step forward, and he deflated, his shoulders hunching as he took his hand off his sword.

“I didn’t murder Gordon Blackwall,” he said finally. “I did take the chance to be a better man. Isn’t that what you Wardens do? Inspire the rest of us to be better than we are?”

“I don’t think wearing a dead man’s name as easily as his armor makes you a particularly good man,” Ro said, fire still in her eyes. “I’m assuming that he’s dead, of course. For all I know, he’s disappeared with the rest of them, and you’re just making use of his absence.”

He met her eyes briefly, and she saw a flash of grief--or maybe guilt--before he looked to the ground again. “Blackwall is dead. I’m sorry for that, but there it is. But I didn’t kill him.”

Ro sighed. She silently sent a prayer up to the Maker; it was always difficult when a Warden passed on. There weren’t so many left of them in the world, and the death of even one of their number was a harsh reminder. At least he hadn’t had to fight the Deep Roads. At least he hadn’t had to hear the Calling.

“So what did you do?” she asked, bundling up her grief to deal with another time. “Liked the look of the armor? Liked the sound of the name?”

The man pretending to be Blackwall sighed. “Look, it’s simple: the real Blackwall found me in a bad way after doing a bad thing. He recruited me, pulled me up out of my own mess and promised me a new start. A way to repent. I can’t fix the things I did, but in the Wardens, I could wipe that clean. Start again. Don’t know any man in my situation who would say no to that. But on our way back to Weisshaupt, darkspawn attacked us, and he went down. Threw himself in front of me and took the killing blow.”

He glanced up at her through his explanation, watching her reactions. He kept his arms crossed, defensive, as if he knew she wouldn’t believe him even if it was the truth. Ro wasn’t sure that she didn’t believe him. She wasn’t sure that she did either. He was very obviously leaving parts of the story out--important parts. She raised an eyebrow, impatient.

“I thought I was done for, then--no way the Wardens would believe me if I turned up with this story. I was sure they’d refuse me at best, execute me at worst. So I found a new way out. Became a different man. A better one. One who believed I was worth a second chance. I put on his armor and came out here to recruit--or at least to help people. And I’ve been helping. There’s a lot more people alive now because of what I’ve taught them. It’s a nice change.”

He fell silent, head bowed, waiting for Ro’s judgement. She just sighed again, rubbing a hand across her brow. The Calling surged across the back of her mind and she winced; she was already getting tired of beating it back.

“Do you know anything about the disappearances?” she asked finally. He looked up with confusion--clearly it was not the line of questioning he’d been expecting.

“Sorry, no,” he said. “I didn’t even know they had disappeared.” He hesitated before asking, “Why haven’t you gone, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Ro gave him a withering look. “Who’s to say I won’t?” she said, sarcasm thick on her tongue, masking the worry buried in the words. The Calling flared up in her again, and she shrugged irritably. Alistair wouldn’t have been so angry at the song--he would have found some way to joke through this, to make this unbearable burden weigh nothing more than a laugh. But Alistair wasn’t there--she dreaded to think of him disappearing with the other Wardens, couldn’t stop herself from fearing she would never see him again. She knew he would have urged her to recruit this imposter, to give him a second chance. But looking at him, knowing he’d been living in a dead Warden’s armor with no idea what burdens came with it, her lip curled and she was suddenly desperate to be anywhere but near him.

“This has been a wonderful chat, truly,” she spat, venom so thick in her voice she knew she would regret it later. “I’m so glad of all the new information we’ve discovered. I’m sure all the Wardens in southern Thedas all disappearing at the same time the world is ending is nothing to worry about, but since you don’t know _anything_ , we’ll just be off then. I wouldn’t stop in any towns, though, I’m sure some magistrates might be looking for you.”

She turned away from him, fully intending to dismiss him completely--this had been another waste of time, another dead end. The Wardens were still gone, everyone she knew and loved vanished as if in a puff of smoke. And this man had the audacity to pretend to be one of them. Had the nerve to consider himself on their level, to claim their work as his own. She let out a grunt of frustration and pushed past Cassandra toward the lake, ready to be far away, ready to do something. She’d been chasing her tail since they’d slowed the Breach, following useless rumor after useless rumor. She was no closer to knowing where or why the Wardens had gone, and the need to know, to help, to _fix_ this was like an itch under her skin, warring with the crashing beat of the Calling against the inside of her skull.

She was so damn tired. Why did the end of the world keep happening to her, and her alone?

“Inquisition, you said?” the man called from behind her, and she rounded on him with a badly repressed cry of annoyance. He did not back down. “Maybe I’m not a Warden, and maybe I don’t know much about the Divine’s death or demons falling from the sky, but I’d be willing to bet that you need every man you can find. I’m a good fighter, and I’ve been helping people on my own for quite some time. Perhaps it’s time to come out of the woods. Perhaps I can do some good for you.”

Ro stalked back toward him, eyes alight. “Maybe you’re a surprisingly rare good person, and maybe you just want to help people, but it’s just as possible you killed a man for his armor and you’re a lying, murdering thief. I don’t know what you did to get conscripted in the first place. I don’t know anything about you, and I’m not in the business of letting murderers join the Inquisition. But lucky for you, the _Wardens_ don’t care. You want to be a Warden so badly? You want a fresh start, the evil deeds of your past wiped clean? Fine. I’ll show you how real conscription works. What’s your name?”

“My--what are you--”

“If you don’t tell me, Sister Nightingale will find out on her own, and I’ll still know either way. Only this way, you start earning the barest hint of my trust.” Ro’s voice was cold, her eyes hard, and the man could not meet her gaze for more than a second before looking away. He glanced over her shoulder several times, towards Cassandra or Sera or Vivienne, but the other women simply watched. This was not their fight.

“Rainier,” he said finally. “Thom Rainier.”

“I invoke the Right of Conscription, Thom Rainier,” Ro said harshly. “From this point on, you are a Warden-Recruit, under my command, until such time as your Joining can be arranged. Congratulations, you’re no longer a criminal, if that’s what you were. If you ever lie to me ever again, I will have you stripped of your rank and sent on your Calling early. Don’t test me.”

She turned on her heel and left, skirting the edge of the lake, one hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of her sword, knuckles white with fury. Sera watched her go with a look in her eyes that might have been worry before she shook herself and turned to Rainier with a grin.

“That’s the friggen Hero of Ferelden that just reamed you out, you know,” she said slyly, and watched the man’s stunned anger turn to stunned awe. “I think you’re on her bad side.”

.

Ro watched Rainier the entire trip up to Redcliffe. He could not take two steps without her cold, blue eyes snapping to him, making him shiver with the intensity of her obvious dislike. In camp at night, he often turned, only to bump his elbow into hers as she hovered menacingly in his peripheral vision. If he thought it unnerving, he said nothing. He glanced occasionally up toward one of the other women, but Vivienne only met his gaze with a similar chill, and Sera just laughed every time. Only Cassandra looked at him with any sort of sympathy, but even that was tempered with a wariness. A distrust.

Ro found herself horrifically annoyed by the man.

He proved to be a decent traveling companion, quiet and hardy. He never once complained about the horses, the cold rations, the early mornings or late nights. He was a decent cook, which was a nice change from the women’s abysmal campfire stews, and he never whined about being forced to clean up the dishes. He snored like a frost troll with pneumonia, but if one kicked him over onto his side, he usually stopped. Ro found every one of his silences, every one of his helping hands to be a personal affront.

She hated his calm, humble exterior. He was too good, too simple, too willing to help. They dragged him to a rift, and he merely set his mouth in a grim line and took care of a terror on his own while the rest of them concentrated on the two rage demons and the various wisps the Fade spat out. He had double checked all of them for injuries when the rift was closed, and provided bandages from his over-stuffed pack for any who needed them without second thought.

She kept watching for a break in this shell, for some slip up that would prove to her what an awful person he really was underneath it all.

In the entire ride around Hafter’s Woods to the last two rifts, and all the way back up into the village of Redcliffe, it never happened. He was solid and dependable, helpful and kind the entire trip.

Ro wanted to strangle him.

It wasn’t so much that he had lied about being a Warden; it was that he had lied so _badly_. She supposed she should have been pleased that the secrets of the order had been so well kept, that he hadn’t known about the Joining or the Calling or conscription or the treaties. But she found that she kept coming back to the reckless overconfidence he’d shown in lying about conscription to the face of a woman wearing Warden armor. It galled her to think that he’d thought her stupid enough that he could get away with it, or that he’d been at it so long that it had become habit.

She was properly furious that the real Blackwall had been killed, and that Rainier had known, and that he hadn’t bothered to tell anyone. Wardens were used to the idea that their bodies would never be recovered after they died--there would be no funerals for those who went into the Deep Roads. But to be robbed of even what little ritual and dignity was given to those who were lost... It rankled her. She had half a mind to charge to the coast and find whatever shallow, unmarked grave Rainier had thought was good enough for the Warden-Constable of Val Chevin, and fix it.

Of course, Cassandra reminded her, gently, that they had certain, no less important tasks to complete first. And so it was with a heavy heart that Ro led the way into the familiar, muddy streets of Redcliffe Village.

They left Rainier at a temporary half-camp under the creaking, broken eaves of the remains of the windmill. The burned shell seemed to rise from the hill to stab Ro in the heart with a nostalgic sort of longing for Alistair, Wynne, and Leliana. They had held this point against countless undead, long into the night, the fires burning low and angry as they kept fighting. She’d found all her reservations about Wynne melting away as the spirit healer kept them alive through the night, and then dove unhesitatingly into the Fade to save Connor. She suddenly missed her old friend fiercely, and though it was reassuring to have such a powerful mage in Vivienne at her back, there was a tenderness missing in the younger enchanter that had always been a bastion of comfort in Wynne. Knowing they were going to meet with the mages of the newly broken Circle, Ro wished for Wynne more than ever--her voice of reason, her quiet council, her gentle authority.

She’d just have to muddle through on her own, she supposed. She still didn’t see why her opinion mattered, as she was neither mage nor templar, but Leliana had trusted her voice enough to invite her to the conclave. And she had worked with enough Warden mages to know the value of mages outside the Circle, to see different ways of dealing with them beyond locking them up and fearing them. She wished it wasn’t her problem, but if no one else was willing to find a solution, she’d give it her best try. That was, however, a fight for another day--after they’d closed the Breach.

“What are you hoping to accomplish here, my dear?” Vivienne asked her as they wound down the hill toward the village proper. “While I’m sure not everyone here is completely insane, I doubt you’ll find anyone willing to be reasoned with.”

“About the Circles, perhaps,” Ro said, shrugging. “I’m not here about that. I’m here to get the mages to help me close the Breach.”

“Surely you have some vested interest in seeing the world get back to normal afterwards, though.” Vivienne stated it as fact. Ro raised an eyebrow.

“I rather think I’d like to leave it better than it was before it broke.”

It was Vivienne’s turn to raise an eyebrow, and the air temperature dropped several degrees. “You can’t think that having these mages run wild is a good idea.” Again, it was fact, not a question of opinion. Ro frowned at the tone, and turned to survey the grassy square in front of the Chantry that was bursting with noise and laughter and gossip as mages made their way around the market, down to the docks, to the tavern that was Ro and her friends’ goal. She saw little fear here, and what fear existed was directed toward the Breach, toward the broken world, not the templars, not the Circle, not their own magic. There seemed to be a new-found confidence to many of the mages, a sense of pride that she had never seen in a group of mages outside the Wardens before.

Her thoughts were dragged back to Kinloch, back to the templars slamming the doors closed and refusing entry to anyone. She remembered asking Greagoir how they were planning on getting food to the survivors, and he had stared at her like she’d grown an extra head. She remembered watching the exhausted mages they’d rescued stumble out of the doors, and Greagoir reaching for his sword first and his friend Irving second. She had known how easy it would have been for those templars to carry out the Rite of Annulment, how eagerly they would have done it.

She remembered Wynne’s face when she’d looked at the templars, the resignation there. She had asked Wynne, once, if she was afraid of the templars: the old enchantress had sighed and said no, that she trusted them to do their job. Ro had heard the silent acceptance there, the long-ingrained knowledge that, if the templars had found out about Wynne’s friendly spirit and had decided to kill her for it, that Wynne would have let them. Ro had been horrified. Wynne had simply smiled sadly and shrugged. “It is the way of things,” she had said.

But Redcliffe was full of proof that the way of things had changed. These mages had stood up to the templars, and when the templars tried to kill them, they chose life. Surely that was all anyone deserved. Surely the mages deserved nothing less than the Wardens--acceptance, purpose. To not be feared.

Ro turned back to Vivienne, and shrugged again. “It’s no worse an idea than picking a fight with the entire Chantry while trying to close a hole in the sky.”

She felt a wave of disapproval wash over her from Vivienne, but she simply turned and headed toward the tavern. Fighting with Vivienne about mage rights was a battle for another day. She rather hoped it would be more of a discussion than a fight--she liked Vivienne, and respected her deeply for the skills she had in both magic and politics that Ro could only dream of having, and she didn’t like the idea of the Enchanter thinking ill of her for something as trivial as a difference of opinion. She filed away the need for a conversation sooner rather than later to smooth out any ruffled feathers, and led the way into the dusty sunbeam-scattered interior of the Gull and Lantern.

Unfortunately, the meeting went no better than Vivienne had predicted--though it wasn’t the mages who were uncooperative. Somehow, improbably, impossibly, Tevinter had marched up to their doorstep while they were busy looking at the sky. Ro found herself far less surprised than she should have been. It seemed inevitable that everything that could go wrong had to implode in the worst possible way.

She was rather getting used to it.


	4. The Emissary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (My beta reader went to sleep before I finished writing, so please forgive any typos?)

Ro didn’t particularly like the War Room on a good day--it was dark and stuffy and since it was a leftover storeroom at the back of the Chantry, there were piles of old altar cloths, ancient disused candlesticks, and other paraphernalia cluttering up the corners. But it was even worse on days like today, when everyone decided to fight about her as if she wasn’t in the room.

“There’s still time to give up this nonsense and go and get the templars!” Cullen said testily, and Ro pulled her hand away from her forehead where it had been futilely attempting to stave off a growing headache.

“It’s not nonsense,” she said acidly. “You’re ignoring the bigger picture here.”

“Redcliffe is in the hands of a Tevinter magister,” Cassandra said--for the third time this meeting--gesturing at Ro in agreement. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”

“You want us to just walk away,” Ro said, bracing herself on the table, “to just...leave the mages to their own stupidity, and let a foreign power gain its first foothold in the south in _decades_.”

“I’m not saying--”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying, Cullen!” Ro burst out angrily.

“Herald, please,” Josephine said warningly, and Ro tilted her head in apology. But Cullen’s hand went to the back of his neck in a nervous gesture, and Ro couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied at his discomfort.

“I’m terribly sorry, Ambassador,” she said finally. “But the commander and I have had this exact discussion before today, and his arguments haven’t changed sufficiently to be useful to anyone.”

“I’m sorry?” Cullen said, brow lowering in confusion. Leliana’s eyes were heavy on Ro, as if she knew what the Herald was going to say next and was forcibly willing her not to.

“I distinctly remember a time when--like now--mages were in danger, and you were arguing full force for me to go slaughter them all without regard for innocence. Perhaps you’ve come down off your high horse long enough to rescind the kill-on-sight order, but suggesting we just ignore their plight now in favor of, as you say, going and getting the templars like any sensible person should, still isn’t endearing you to me much at all.”

Cassandra and Josephine watched Ro through her tirade, but their eyes slowly slid across the table to Cullen as she finished, waiting for his response. Leliana took up Ro’s previous position with her head in her hand, and Ro wondered if her friend’s headache was as bad as hers.

Cullen’s mouth opened and closed several times after he finished wincing at the mention of their previous meeting, but no words came for a full minute. The spymaster took pity on him.

“Ro, you know there were circumstances at Kinloch that--” Leliana began, but Ro cut her off.

“Circumstances that you and I recognized perfectly well, circumstances we dealt with, and still knew didn’t justify the wholesale murder of everyone at the top of the tower!”

“I didn’t--” Cullen said, coughing as his voice was eight times quieter than it normally was. “I cannot condone what was said at that time--what _I_ said at that time. It was a...there were...”

“I know,” Ro spat. “But there are no _mitigating circumstances_ now for you to hide behind. There is only your own petty fear of mages that proves to me that, in all this time, instead of healing your hurts from Kinloch, you still hide behind them. You persist in the misunderstanding that mages in danger must be in danger from themselves, must be a danger to others, instead of understanding that mages are people, and they should be treated as such. And people who are in danger and need aid deserve to be helped. So. We are going to Redcliffe. We are going to help the mages. And we are going to get Tevinter off our doorstep. I spent too long saving Ferelden from everything else to have it fall to the Imperium now. Understood?”

There was a lengthening silence as the leaders of the Inquisition watched each other for the appropriate response. Finally, Cullen spoke up: “Understood, Warden-Commander.”

Ro nodded, and refused to make eye-contact with Leliana as Josephine chimed in, gesturing to the letter that had started this whole meeting.

“If we are going back to Redcliffe, we should address the fact that Alexius asked for the Herald by name. Clearly, he has some sort of trap planned.”

“How kind of him to invite specifically me,” Ro said, rolling her eyes. “Is it a yearly court summons or an Orlesian garden party that he’s hosting?”

“He’s stuffed so many compliments into the letter, we’re certain he wants to kill you,” Leliana said, a hint of a smile tugging the corner of her lips.

“Well, however can I possibly turn down such an eloquent offer of murder?” Ro said. Leliana covered a snort of laughter in a cough.

Cullen frowned, letting out a sigh of frustration. “Redcliffe Castle is a fortress,” he said through clenched teeth. “There’s no way in--it’s repelled thousands of assaults over the centuries. If you go in there, you’ll die, and we will lose the only means we have of closing the rifts. I won’t allow it. The templars are by far the safer bet.”

It was Ro’s turn to let out a snort of laughter. “Sorry, I thought you said you won’t allow it. What will you do to stop me?”

“Well, I thought I might ask nicely,” he spat back.

“I suppose you could always try to convince me to kill Wynne again, since that worked so well last time.” 

“Enough,” Cassandra cut in, slamming her fist on the table. “This is ridiculous. We don’t have time right now for you two to finish whatever unsettled business you have left over from ten years ago!”

“Apologies, Seeker,” Ro said, but there was still heat in her voice. “But if you want my help, you’re going to have to come with me to Redcliffe. If Cullen can’t handle that, he’s free to leave.”

Cassandra turned the full force of her glare on the commander as he opened his mouth, and he snapped it shut with a sigh.

“Fine,” he said finally. “But this is by far the more dangerous road. We can’t ask you to go in there.”

“You’re not,” Ro said bluntly. “I’m asking you to come in and back me up.”

“All this is irrelevant if we can’t breach the castle,” Josephine said. “We cannot exactly lay siege to Redcliffe. An Orlesian Inquisition bringing an army into Ferelden? Not ideal.”

“We don’t need to lay siege to it,” Ro said, shrugging.

“How do you suggest getting inside, then?” Cullen asked testily.

Ro glanced at Leliana with raised eyebrows, and Leliana nodded, suddenly understanding. “There’s a secret passage,” she said. “For the family, in emergencies. I could get some of my agents through to infiltrate the castle while you meet Alexius as a distraction.”

Ro nodded. “I can’t guarantee your people much time.”

“They won’t need much.”

“So, focus their attention on the Warden while we take out the Tevinters? It’s risky, but it could work,” Cullen mused, and the fact that he was no longer glaring daggers at her convinced Ro that he was finally seriously considering her plan as viable.

“Fortunately, you won’t be alone,” a voice said as the door banged open and Dorian Pavus waltzed into the room, a harried scout chasing after him. Ro was less surprised to see him than she perhaps should have been. He’d proved himself an asset at Redcliffe village--or at the very least, a willing accomplice--but she wasn’t sure she trusted him. He seemed eager to help, though, and she’d take whatever she could get.

“Sorry, messers,” the scout said nervously. “He said he had information, and I couldn’t stop him.”

“It’s all right,” Ro said, dismissing her with a gesture and turning to the mage with a raised eyebrow, waiting for him to share.

“Your spies won’t get past any magical protection Alexuis has placed on the castle without me, secret passage or no,” Dorian said. “I worked with him for years; I can spot his favorite warding spells from miles away. If you’re going after him, I’m coming with you.”

“I’m not going to say no to a man willingly throwing himself into the most dangerous part of the mission,” Ro said quietly, glancing at Leliana, who simply nodded. “All right,” she said. “Josephine, if you could draft a letter accepting the invitation to the garden party he so generously sent us? Cassandra, will you come?”

“Of course,” the Seeker said.

“Good. I always feel like you’re an official representative of the Inquisition, whereas I’m just sort of along because I can do this,” Ro said, wiggling the fingers of her left hand until the green glowed a bit more brightly. “I’ll find someone else to bring just in case things go south more quickly than we anticipate. Also because all good envoys come in threes. Leli, you’ll get your people ready?”

“They are always ready, but yes.”

“All right then. We’ll send the letter today and be ready to follow it in two days.” She heard Cullen sigh loudly as she turned to leave the room, and frowned, knowing that she was going to have to deal with him sometime sooner rather than later. For now, it was a fight for another day. She escaped the Chantry, blinking in the bright sunlight reflecting off the snow that never seemed to melt no matter how far into summer it was outside of the mountains. She debated going back inside to apologize to Josephine for the scene she had caused, but before she could, Leliana’s hand on her shoulder propelled her into the spymaster’s tent, and her friend turned to her with a glare.

“What was that all about?” she demanded, and it was Ro’s turn to sigh.

“He was being obnoxious.”

“No. What was that?”

Ro bit her lip, knowing how childish it had been to bait him. But every time she saw Cullen, she was forcibly reminded of just how much of the world was exactly the same as it was ten years ago, despite all her efforts to make it better. She had been the only one who could save the mages at Kinloch, and he had tried his best to convince her not to. And here he was again, giving the same damn advice, as if nothing had changed. As if it never would.

She knew this couldn’t be easy on him, either. She knew he had endured a lot of pain and torment at Kinloch, and she knew that he had been at Kirkwall in the intervening years, which could not have been much better. But she hadn’t exactly had an easy time of it herself, and she hadn’t come out the other side thinking all mages were evil.

“It was...it was the way he wouldn’t even _listen_ ,” she said finally as Leliana crossed her arms. “Every time you or I advocated for the mages, he just...shut it down. Called it nonsense. Said it was too dangerous to even be considered. And he won’t just admit that he’s afraid.”

“Of mages?” Leliana asked, and there was surprise in her voice.

Ro nodded. “Clearly. I understand past trauma; I understand that the blood mages in Kinloch hurt him in ways I can’t even imagine. But he can’t let that fear control his decisions. He can’t let his personal problems interfere with...”

“With the Inquisition going where it can do the most good,” Leliana finished quietly, sighing and leaning against a table stacked with reports and codes and messages. Ro wondered if she ever slept, or if she simply spent her entire life decoding her agents’ information. “I know what you mean, but that’s no reason to...attack him.”

“I am sorry for that,” Ro said, frowning. “I should not have done that, especially not in front of the rest of you. And I will apologize to him. Cassandra is right: we do have to settle our unfinished business. And soon.”

Leliana nodded. “For what it’s worth, as your friend, _I_ don’t think you were out of line. As your adviser in all things Inquisition, yes, antagonizing the commander of your troops was probably not the best move.”

“They’re not my troops,” Ro said automatically. “They are the Inquisition’s troops.”

“And you, our de facto leader,” Leliana said, shrugging. “You knew it was coming. The moment they started calling you ‘Herald.’”

Ro sighed. “I don’t want it,” she said.

“You’re a good commander, though, and you have experience both in leading large groups of people and in saving the world,” Leliana said, offering her a rare smile. “I don’t know how long it was take us to make it official, but you should be ready.”

Ro smiled back, but it slipped off her face again as she thought of the responsibility, the world resting on her shoulders. “He’ll fight me every step of the way,” she said. “I don’t know if I can work with him.”

“Talk to him,” Leliana said, shrugging. “Maybe you can work past it. Or perhaps, simply set it aside for now. Once we’ve closed the Breach, saved the world...then perhaps you can go back to hating each other in peace.”

“I don’t _hate_ him,” Ro protested. Leliana just quirked an eyebrow at her. “All right, I dislike him very strongly. He did try to convince me to kill Wynne that one time.”

“He had just been tortured by mages for days and watched all his friends probably be killed.”

“Yeah, well...” Ro said, crossing her arms defensively. “People die. It happens. I dealt with it. He’s...not. Not dealing with it.”

Leliana frowned, but she also nodded. “Perhaps I shall talk to him as well.”

“Please,” Ro said. “He needs to understand that the people under his command are not going to suddenly become blood mages just because they’ve been offered a chance to see sunlight outside the Circle for the first time in their lives. He’s a good commander--he leads from the front, and doesn’t hesitate to jump into battle to aid his men. It’s obvious that he cares a great deal for this cause, and for the army he’s been put in charge of. I just need him to care about the half of this organization that wields fire instead of swords.”

“When you talk to him, maybe open with that bit about how you don’t think he’s a bad commander,” Leliana said dryly. “Compliments can go a long way further than sarcasm and you poking holes in him about Kinloch.” Ro let out a huff of laughter, but nodded.

“Very well. But it won’t be now,” she said, pushing off the table. “I’ve a meeting to get to, I suppose.”

“Don’t die,” Leliana said, reaching behind her to pick up a report.

“Oh, but you’re coming with me,” Ro said, a grin growing across her face. Leliana stared at her, then gestured to the stacks of paperwork wordlessly. “If I’m the distraction, someone has to show the rest of the team which floorboards to lift in the windmill.”

“I think, if we describe it to them, they can work it out for themselves. My people aren’t idiots, you know.”

“But...it’ll be just like old times,” Ro pleaded, her eyes going wide and innocent. “Please, Leli?”

Leliana rolled her eyes, and sighed. “Don’t look at me like that; I’ll feel guilty for saying no. You know I would come if I could.”

Ro nodded sadly. “I know, I know. And I’ll stop asking. Maybe.”

“No, you won’t. But I’ll forgive you anyway.”

“You’re far more valuable here anyway,” Ro repeated, convincing herself. She smiled. “Thank you, by the way.”

Leliana frowned at her. “For what?”

“For everything--the long nights decoding, the information, the constant watch. And also for being here for me when I need you to remind me why we’re doing this.”

Leliana just smiled. “Go to Redcliffe. Take Sera with you--you always fight better when you have an archer at your back. I’ll send Charter as well, to lead the team through the passage. She’s the best I have, so take care of her. And be safe, Ro.”

“I’ll try,” Ro said, smiling. Leliana turned to her reports as the tent flap swung closed, and Ro knew it was so that she wouldn’t have to watch her best friend leave for what might be the last time.

 _Any of them might be the last time_ , Ro thought to herself as she made her way down to the tavern, where she knew she’d find Sera. But it was a half-hearted thought; as much as she hated to agree with Cullen, this mission was going to be more dangerous than the rest. She sighed. It didn’t matter. They’d get it done. That’s what they did.

.

The trip to Redcliffe was quiet. Almost too quiet, as everyone was keyed up for the mission and simply waiting for something to ambush them on the road and ruin the plan before it could start. They had just enough people to make it work--no more and no less. They needed every agent Leliana had sent with them, and any skirmish on the road could cost them people they couldn’t afford to lose. But other than a bear wandering too close to camp one night, there was no trouble on the trek down from the mountains into the familiar territory of the Hinterlands.

Dorian, it turned out, was excellent company, and became a huge asset on the journey. His hilarious tales of the misadventures of various Tevinter youths that may or may not have been him kept the scouts amused and slightly more relaxed than they would have been without. And his grumbling complaints about the weather and the condition of the roads were things everyone wanted to say out loud, but feared would get them marked as the whiner of the group. No one could truly call Dorian a whiner, for even as he complained, he pulled fire out of the air to warm them as they rode or to dry out wet socks around the camp. He made fast friends with several of the scouts, which Ro thought was a brilliant move on his part, since he would be the one they would rely on to get them safely though any magical traps in the passages underneath Redcliffe castle.

He endeared himself to her as well by riding beside her one afternoon and giving her a decent rundown of Alexius, and what she could expect upon meeting with him.

“He’s not a bad person, you know,” Dorian said, thoughtfully. “Or rather, he didn’t use to be. I’m sure he has a reason for doing this, however terrible that reason might be.” He caught sight of Ro’s skeptical look and laughed. “Oh, I’m not excusing him or justifying this in any way. I wouldn’t be here helping you stop him if I were. But I think it’s good to know that your enemy might not have always been quite so nefarious as he is now, yes?”

Ro had to agree, and she tried to take this mentality with her when she entered Redcliffe several days later. She, Sera, and Cassandra said goodbye to the strike team at the top of the road that split off to the windmill, leaving them with last minute reiterations of the plan and the timeline, and ensuring that none of them would take any undue risks that she would have to explain to Leliana if they died. They all laughed, and Charter promised that she would not have to face the wrath of the Nightingale. But it was Ro’s wrath that Alexius had to worry about as she rode through the village that had already seen so much pain and death, and was now hurting again under his grasp.

She sighed. She felt a little bit like Redcliffe--ten years later, still suffering from the events of the Blight, never quite recovered, and now this new world-ending problem had been thrust upon them, without warning, under questionable circumstances. And they just wanted to be left alone, to live their lives. She tried to keep Dorian’s advice in mind, but confronted with this castle--a castle Alistair had called home, filled with people they both called friends and family--now under new management, she could not quite call up the usual calmness she usually strove for.

She found herself understanding Eamon’s decision to give up his rule here and move to Denerim full time. She didn’t really think that Anora needed much advising, but Redcliffe had been the seat of so much personal suffering for Eamon that she thought she might have made the same decision in his shoes. She suddenly fiercely wished for Teagan, wished he had not been unceremoniously kicked out of his own home when she so desperately needed an ally close at hand.

 _Not much to be done about that now, Rory_ , Alistair’s voice said in her head. _Let’s get on with this, shall we?_

The seneschal was new. Some Tevinter import who looked at her as if she were mud on his boot, and she forced herself to smile pleasantly as she asked him to announce her to Alexius.

“He invited me, after all.”

“Yes, you,” the man said, his voice faintly disgusted. “These other...people...will have to remain here.”

Ro shared a glance with Cassandra and Sera, who almost laughed, and raised her eyebrows at the seneschal. “They go where I go,” she said. “I suppose we could have our little chat out here. Tell Alexius to bring a good blanket, since the draft is much worse this close to the door.”

The seneschal paused, staring from her to Cassandra’s unwavering glare to the gleam in Sera’s eye as her hand twitched toward the end of her bow, and he sighed.

“Fine. Come with me.”

He led them through the old familiar corridors to the great hall. Teagan’s chair had been dragged from the study to sit before the massive fireplace on the dais at the end of the room; the guards had been replaced by leather-clad Venatori, their helmets like masks hiding their faces; and the banner had been torn down--not replaced with anything yet, but the implication was heavy: this was not the arl’s house anymore.

“My lord,” the seneschal said, voice almost as haughty as Alexius looked, sitting carelessly in the arl’s seat, one leg thrown over the other, comfortable, and ominously backlit by the fire. “Lady Liarora Cousland of Highever and...other agents of the Inquisition.”

“My friend,” Alexius said expansively, standing to welcome her with arms flung open. “So good to see you again!”

“You and I are not friends, Alexius,” Ro said, but she kept her posture relaxed, forcing herself not to cross her arms or show her annoyance at which of her titles the seneschal had chosen. It took all the training her mother had once drilled into her as a child, back when her future had held more ladylike possibilities. “But I’m sure we can work out some arrangement that could be seen as...what's a step down from friendly?”

“Are we to have no say in the matter?” Grand Enchanter Fiona emerged from the shadows behind one of the guards, looking angrier than she had in the Gull and Lantern, looking as if she’d realized what a mistake she had made.

“Fiona, you would not have given your people over to me if you did not trust me,” Alexius said, and the smile on his face was pained, though he’d clearly been trying for something fatherly.

“I’m sure she trusts you implicitly,” Ro said, head cocked to one side as she examined Alexius. “You’re a noble after all, and we know no noble would ever double-cross the people he’s responsible for, especially not for his own, personal benefit. But perhaps Fiona can stay for these negotiations. Certainly, she knows what’s best for her people, better than you or I truly could.”

Alexius let out a _hmm_ of something that might have been annoyance, but he did not disagree. He stalked back to his chair, and Ro was aware of the fact that he was sitting in Teagan’s chair to throw her off balance, to show that he held the power here, that he was in charge and she was the supplicant. She ground her teeth, silently promising Teagan that she would get him a new chair if she accidentally threw this one--and its current occupant--backwards into the fire.

“Very well; to negotiations, then,” Alexius said smoothly, trying to hide the fact that he was disappointed he hadn’t visibly upset her yet. “The Inquisition needs mages to close the Breach, and I happen to have some mages. What are you offering in exchange?”

Ro allowed a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips as she silently counted out timing, working out how far down the secret passages the scouts would have made it by now. She took one step forward, keeping Alexius’ focus on her, and settling in to give the scouts more time to get into position, silent and unseen. She considered her mother’s training for a moment, debating which tactic to use to stall the magister further. Her mother had always called her quite the lost cause, but she was damn well going to try anyway.

She cocked her head again, resting a hand casually on the pommel of her sword. “I have learned many things in my years commanding the Wardens,” she said easily. “For example, there are many clever traps laid in the Deep Roads--most people think the darkspawn are just a gibbering hoard, but some are far more intelligent than anyone on the surface would guess. They lay these runes specifically for the Wardens or the Legion of the Dead, knowing that we are by far their greatest threat. They hide them carefully in the very structure of the Deep Roads, veiled in the stones.”

Ro shifted her weight forward again, keeping Alexius’ eyes fixed on her. She forced herself not to turn her head to see if the scouts had arrived yet. “Of course, it’s our job to go down there and root them out, thin the population whenever they get too ambitious and think about invading. We very often find ourselves setting off the traps. Sometimes there is simply no avoiding them--a collapsed passage might be the only way forward, despite the vermin hiding in the rubble.”

Alexius’ eyebrows slowly lifted higher the longer she spoke. His expression was otherwise impassive, but she rather thought he was clever enough to notice the hints and digs she laced into her anecdote. She caught a glimpse of flashing metal out of the corner of her eye as he leaned forward, oblivious to the scouts sneaking up behind his guards as he sneered at her. “If you know the traps are there, I marvel that you choose to go anyway. What fool would willingly walk into a trap they know is waiting to be sprung?”

“Generally, a fool who has a plan to counter the trap with magic and cleverness of their own,” she said, sweeping a hand around her as the leather-clad guards crumpled one by one, dead or unconscious to the floor. The Inquisition agents stepped into their places, bloody daggers at the ready, surrounding Alexius, who stood with a strangled cry.

“We don’t barter for people here in Ferelden,” Ro said, stepping up onto the dais next to him, threatening. “And we Wardens and quite skilled at disarming traps.”

“You think you know what you’ve done?” he asked, voice dangerously quiet. “You march in here with your stolen mark, high and mighty, and you think you’re in control? You have no idea what you have. You are a _mistake_.” He hissed the last, and though she wanted to step away from him, she couldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“How was it supposed to happen, then, since I so cruelly interfered with your plans to destroy the world?”

“It was to be a triumphant moment for the Elder One!” he spat. “For the world!”

“You sound just like the villainous cliche everyone expects us to be,” Dorian said, emerging from the shadows, shaking his head. “And here I strive to avoid stereotypes at every possible turn.”

“Dorian,” Alexius turned to face his former student, a look of bitter resignation crossing his face before it settled into determined hatred. “I gave you a chance to be a part of this. The Elder One has power you wouldn’t believe, but you turned down the chance to see it. To see him raise the Imperium from its ashes to be glorious again.”

“So the Elder One is some crackpot from Tevinter who wants to break the world so that he can reshape it into something it used to be ages ago?” Ro scoffed. “Surely he knows not even the most powerful mages have that power.”

“He will soon be a god!” Alexius countered. “He will remake the world into a place where mages rule from the Boeric Ocean to the Frozen Seas.”

“This is exactly what we talked about never wanting to happen,” Dorian protested, stepping up beside Ro, one hand reaching toward his mentor as if placating him--or beseeching him. “What could possibly have convinced you to do this?”

Alexius turned away, eyes falling on his son standing still behind Teagan’s chair. Felix looked pale in the firelight, and Ro recognized the Blight in him just as she had in the Chantry when he’d begged her to stop his father, when Dorian had promised him they would do their best. He looked at his father now with a mixture of pity and understanding.

“Let it go, Father,” he said. “Let the mages fight the Breach and let’s go home.”

“It’s the only way I can save you,” Alexius protested, voice broken for a moment before he took a deep breath, turning back to Ro and Dorian, signs of weakness disappearing as soon as they came.

“I’m going to die, Father,” Felix said. “You have to accept that.”

“No,” Alexius said, not looking at his son. “The Elder One promised...if I reverse the mistake at the temple, he will save you. The mistake...” His expression darkened as he glanced once again at the dead or unconscious Venatori, and his glare fell on Ro--a look of pure venom. “You should _never_ have _existed_.”

Sparks of blue-green magic fired up from an amulet he pulled from around his neck in one quick, decisive move; they coalesced into a swirling hole in the world almost as quickly. With a shout, Dorian threw himself in front of her, thrusting a hand glowing with his own magic at the amulet, but the blue lightning crackled and grew until there was something eerily reminiscent of a rift growing on the dais. Ro raised her left hand in a futile, instinctive attempt to close it and found herself falling forward toward it in a rush, crashing into Dorian as he was swept along with her, as if they were caught in an undertow that was pulling them out to sea.

Something told her this would hardly be as pleasant as drowning.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's almost my birthday, so I'm giving y'all a gift: a nice, long chapter to tide you over for the month. I'm going to be spending November working on NaNoWriMo, so while there might be a surprise update if I manage to take a break from noveling, your better bet is to look forward to December and more updates then! Thanks so very much for sticking with me and Ro, and we look forward to getting through the future soon!


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